Geoff Thomas: Patience pays at dog trial

Jamie Payton's spaniel flushed and retrieved this cock pheasant, but missed another bird. Photo / Geoff Thomas

The brown and white springer spaniel came out of the long grass with a cock pheasant in her mouth and then another bird suddenly jumped into the air.

"I am afraid I have no choice. I have to disqualify her," said the judge, Peter Hagen. For dog-handler Jamie Payton, it was a huge disappointment.

Payton was competing in the North Island Spaniel Field Trials, held at Rathmoy Game Preserve near Hunterville a week ago, and his dog had missed one of the pheasants in the thick grass.

"The second bird was actually closer and she must have had the scent of the cock and was following it, and she went past the closer bird. That may have been the only bird of the day but it was just bad luck," said Hagen.

About 25 dogs and their owners were competing in the event, held over two days. Each dog has 15 minutes to impress the judge and the dog must follow its owner's commands, casting left and right to cover the ground, and it must not get too far in front.

"About 25m is the limit, for it is no good if a bird is flushed but it is too far out to shoot," said another judge, Paul O'Connor. The dogs should work with a minimum of command and points are deducted if the handler uses the whistle or shouts commands. Most of the instructions are delivered by hand signals. Noise can alert a bird and it is all about the dog following the scent of a bird and flushing it for the shooter.

The dog must use the wind to find scent and it is so technical that points are deducted if a dog turns away from the wind rather than into the breeze when it completes a cast to one side and turns to go back the other way.

"It may miss picking up the scent of a bird if its backside is pointing into the wind for just a second," said O'Connor.

Then, after the shooter fires a shot, the dog must wait until given the command to find and retrieve the bird. If it rushes off after a shot, it will be penalised.

During the trials, a pair of shooters follow the dog to shoot any birds that are flushed, which simulates real hunting.

"It is not for the fainthearted," said one experienced dog handler. "You are on trial in front of everybody and, if your dog makes a mistake, you can't let it get to you."

One small cocker spaniel flushed a cock pheasant, which was shot and went down in a patch of long grass. The owner sent his dog back repeatedly to find it but it returned without the bird. In this case, the bird was wounded and had run some distance, and the dog was disqualified. Other dogs later joined the chase and recovered the pheasant.

A guest judge from Texas, David Jones, was impressed with the quality of the spaniels. "I would like to take some of them back to Texas," he said. The dogs were similar in the way they worked but the birds were different. "We have a lot of predators and pheasants which are released into the field only last a few days. There are coyotes, badgers and bobcats, which just love pheasants."

Dogs at field trials are judged on their keenness to work, their response to control, how they cover the ground and flush game, how steady they are when the gun fires and how they retrieve the birds.

Faults which earn demerit points include missing game, breaking game or breaking to the shot, barking, being out of control, failing to enter water or heavy cover like blackberries, and dropping game when retrieving.

It is a technical business and many hours of patient training and working with young dogs go into producing a field champion like Ross Simpson's spaniel, Jimmy, which was named Grand Field Champion.

The runner-up was Peter O'Neil and his dog, Mitch.